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An Unpaid Account From 10 Years Ago, Say What? Say What?

Sometimes the beauty of having a blog is that it's a wonderful opportunity to share stories about a simple interaction that goes south really fast. Today is a day that I must share one of those stories. I have no interest in blabbing the particular name of the company that I interacted with. I'm really not one of those gripe to get my way bloggers. I understand why some have to take that approach out of frustration. I'm not frustrated. I admit I was angry at first, but now I'm having a good laugh.

We closed on our house yesterday, but aren't moving in quite yet. I forgot to set up trash service so I called today to have our weekly trash service set up to start next week. After pressing a series of buttons, I was finally connected with a live account representative. We talked through why I was calling. She asked my name, my husband's name. Mentioned she didn't have us on record. I told her we had an account with them 10 years ago, but oh well. No big deal. Then she asked for my phone number (same number from 10 years ago).

She then proceeded to get very nervous, oh I see here... and asked to put me on hold. Maybe 5 minutes later she finally came back and proceeded to tell me that my former account had gone to collections! I was like collections, well for how much? Of course she couldn't tell me. BUT, her supervisor would allow me to start a new account if I put my credit card on file and paid for at least 3 months of service up front. My only choice was for direct payment to be set up. Apparently I was a former trash delinquent. But really I wasn't. We didn't leave our last house for 2 years after the time frame she said my account went to collections. There is no other trash service in Four Mile Canyon, so I had to have the account through 2002.

After she couldn't tell me the amount that I owed, I started getting agitated.

I then requested the collection agency's information so I could get to the bottom of it. The gentleman at the collection agency was quite delightful, which surprised me. He laughed, you want me to look up a trash account from 10 years ago? I agreed, it was absurd. He had no record of my name or address or my desire to scam the trash conglomerate of a month or two of service. He was even kind enough to call the company for me to clear my good name.

Now mind you, I've bought two homes now in the past 10 years. You can't have any unpaid collections accounts or a mortgage doesn't fly. We also have close to near perfect credit.

An hour later I received a call from my friend at the trash service. The supervisor changed her tune, our account had a balance of zero, and she would like to set up my service.

Only problem with that? I had already called another trash service in town. Same exact service was $30 cheaper a month. That made me feel a bit giddy inside. I never did like that other company and dreaded giving them my money. Now I don't have to.

What is up with trash services? We moved in July and transferred our trash service, but were being billed for both houses. DH called and got it fixed and our balance was $0, but then the next bill came with a massive balance and it said we were late- and the day we got the bill, they took our trash cans! He called and they said our account was in collections for $15, but they saw that it was incorrect and would return the cans.

So a week later and no cans, I called to cancel our service. The girl couldn't figure out if we were getting a refund or not. Omg, I was so irritated. I thought business evolution would have weeded a company like that out already!

That's crazy, but I still can't get over the fact that you need to contact and hire a trash collection service. Out our way, the municipality takes care of it and it's all paid via our taxes.

I love reading about your adventures with the new house. We're headed out this week to revisit a house we bid on back in September. It's still vacant and on the market. Maybe the owner won't find our offer so insultingly low this time.